


To Reach the Heights and Soar

by TheRev28



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-27 11:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20407144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRev28/pseuds/TheRev28
Summary: "Byleth isn’t quite sure what made her choose the Black Eagle house. Had anyone asked why, they likely would have received a blank look and a shrug in response. Maybe it’s for the best no one asked."A look into how Byleth takes a Black Eagle house that starts so separate and makes them a family. She just didn't know that's what she was doing.





	1. Why Them?

Byleth isn’t quite sure what made her choose the Black Eagle house.

Truth be told, the entire process leading up to said choice only made it more difficult. In a very short span, she had gone from a respected mercenary to a professor teaching students barely younger than herself at a monastery for a religion she knew next to nothing about. Before she knew what was happening, the other professors (whom she had just met minutes prior, mind you) were telling her to get to know 24 students in the span of a few hours and choose which bunch of eight she would spend the next year  _ teaching _ . 

Unable to see any other course of action, Byleth tried her best to diligently carry out the mission assigned to her. It was easier said than done. She had grown up in the company of adults—and mercenaries at that—as opposed to children. Even as an adult, her father handled most social interactions. To say that Byleth was unprepared to meet 24 new people, many of whom were nobles, was an understatement.

But meet them she did. 

Edelgard von Hresvelg and the other Adrestian nobles of the Black Eagle house. Most very serious, but all seemingly… separate. Respect for, or loyalty to, the Empire seemed to be the only unifying factor.

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd and the finest young people of Faerghus of the Blue Lion house. Just as serious as the Black Eagles, but something about them made them feel like a family already. 

Claude von Riegan and… various people from the Leicester Alliance of the Golden Deer house. As a whole, hardly a serious bunch. An eclectic mish mash of commoner and noble alike, and yet they seemed just as familial as the Lions.

In the end, Byleth chose the Black Eagles. If anyone had asked her why—though thankfully no one did—she would have been unable to articulate an answer. Had anyone asked, they likely would have received a blank look and a shrug in response. Maybe it’s for the best no one asked.

And so her teaching career began in earnest.

In the first few weeks, she learned just how accurate her initial assessment of the house was. Eight students, and only one commoner. Well, technically, Petra was a commoner in the Empire, but she was still a princess of a foreign land. That counted as noble to Byleth. Still, of the seven noble houses of the Adrestian Empire, six of them had a child in her class. Because of the intensely hierarchical nature of the Empire’s nobility, the families tended to keep to themselves. Thus their children were little more than strangers to each other—barring a few exceptions. 

And here they all were, expected to cooperate together. And here was Byleth, expected to teach them how to do that. While they managed to win the first mock battle, Byleth attributed that more to individual skill than to any real sense of camaraderie—or even basic cohesion. 

Their first mission to the Red Canyon showed how far they had to go. 

Byleth assumed that for everyone besides Edelgard and Hubert, this was the students’ first taste of real, life or death combat. She remembered the first time her father had allowed her to take part in a mission—still remembered the feeling of taking her first life. It had hurt, somewhere deep inside, but by her father’s account, she had taken it rather well. If that had been a good reaction, she knew her students would have it worse.

When it was all said and done, each of her students killed at least one bandit. Byleth made sure of that.

Edelgard stood at the vanguard and cut down the first bandit to reach her. The briefest moment of hesitation betrayed how new this still was to the princess, but she pushed past it easily enough. Hubert, meanwhile, unleashed a terrifying magical attack without a second thought to defend Edelgard from a second bandit she had missed. 

After Edelgard’s display of bravery, Ferdinand forced himself to the front, lance at the ready to face an opponent. He very clearly outmatched the bandit in terms of skill with a weapon, but Byleth counted about a dozen opportunities he missed to land a killing blow. Finally, when the bandit got too close for comfort, Ferdinand was forced to deliver a death blow. He didn’t spare a glance for his fallen foe, but his hands shook for the next few minutes.

This same pattern continued for everyone else. They’d face their foe as if it were a sparring match. Countless opportunities to kill would pass them by until their opponent forced their hand. 

Once the bandit leader lay dead by her own hand, Byleth turned to face her students. None of them were hurt, thank the Goddess, but almost all of them had at least one part of their body shaking.

“Find some shade,” Byleth said. “Take a rest. You’ve all earned it.”

Bernadetta collapsed where she stood, sitting with her knees clutched tight against her chest. Dorothea sat down next to her, cross-legged and staring into the middle distance. Ferdinand, Linhardt, Caspar, and Petra actually found a nearby copse of trees to sit under, but each of them had the same look as Dorothea, staring off at nothing.

Byleth looked at Edelgard and found the girl looking at her classmates in the trees, her brow furrowed. She must have felt Byleth’s gaze on her because she turned to look at her professor. Her eyes were missing some of the steel that Byleth had already come to associate with Edelgard. This look was questioning.

The question she wanted to ask was obvious, but Byleth couldn’t simply tell her the answer. Instead, Byleth raised an eyebrow, throwing the question back at Edelgard to face head on. A bit of that steel returned to Edelgard’s eyes, and she set her expression before walking over to her classmates. Hubert, who had watched the entire silent exchange, followed after her.

That left Byleth with Bernadetta and Dorothea. She sat down next to Dorothea, hoping that Bernadetta would hear whatever they said. Truth be told, Byleth didn’t know what to say. Her father had given her a talk after her own first kill, but she didn’t think that same talk would work here. Instead, she opted for silence, giving Dorothea an opportunity to speak in her own time.

They sat there for a few minutes in silence. Eventually, Dorothea took a long, shaky breath.

“Professor?” she asked. Byleth turned to look at the girl. She waited for Dorothea to continue. “Professor, was— Did you have a similar reaction after your first battle?”

“No,” Byleth said. “By all accounts, I took it much better.” Dorothea looked down. Whoops, maybe not the right thing to say. “But that doesn’t mean much. I grew up around mercenaries, around violence and killing. You didn’t. The first time is always hard, but you didn’t let that stop you. I’m proud of you. Of both of you. I saw both of you kill to protect a classmate. All that matters is whether your comrades can trust you to have their backs. On our next mission, can I trust you to have my back?”

“Y-yes, Professor!” Bernadetta said, surprising both Byleth and Dorothea with the sudden outburst. “I’ll do my best to watch your back!”

After a moment of stunned silence, Bernadetta yelped and curled into an even tighter ball, hiding her face. Still, the deed was done, and it had even put a smile on Dorothea’s face, however small.

“You can count on me, Professor,” Dorothea said. She put an arm around Bernadetta. “Both of you can.” 


	2. A Little Fear Goes a Long Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three important conversations happen after Lonato's rebellion, only one of which actually required Byleth.

Byleth still isn’t sure what made her choose the Black Eagle house. 

Even after two months and two missions, she still couldn’t answer the question, had anyone bothered to ask. Maybe it was all the magic users. One of her primary duties in her father’s company was to protect the magic users, and maybe that conditioning spilled over to apply to the Eagles.

In any case, Byleth had stopped worrying about it. She had a job, and by the Goddess, she’d do that job. 

If only that job didn’t involve sending the students into situations they were woefully unprepared for. 

Their mission for the second month was  _ supposed _ to be easy—rearguard action, possible clean up duty. It ended up being a frontline fight. To the students’ credit, they did rather well at first. When facing the normal rank and file troops, only two still displayed noticeable hesitation, Bernadetta and Linhardt. Unfortunately, that veneer of experience washed away rather quickly after— 

“I just cannot believe that a nobleman of any stature would resort to throwing away the lives of simple villagers.”

Ferdinand’s voice carrying through the dining hall reminded Byleth where she was. She glanced up from her food and towards the young noble’s voice. He sat at a table with Caspar and, of all people, Dorothea.

“Gah, I’m right there with you, Ferdiand,” Caspar said, slamming his fist to the table. “Even a week later, the injustice of it all makes me want to pull my hair out! If Catherine hadn’t gotten to him first, you can bet I would have shown that phony lord a thing or two.”

“And here I thought it was practically a noble’s job to use commoners however they saw fit,” Dorothea said, sipping her tea.

“It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a noble or a commoner, right is right and wrong is wrong,” Caspar said. “If a bandit leader had done the same thing, I’d be just as angry about it.”

“And in any case, a true nobleman cares for the commoners in his domain,” Ferdinand said. “Lonato was no true nobleman.”

“Oh no you don’t Ferdie,” Dorothea said, voice hard. “You don’t get to use the ‘No True Adrestian’ argument here. Whether you like it or not, this kind of behavior is all too common among the nobility, and you can’t run away from that reality. Just because those actions don’t fit your ideal of nobility doesn’t mean nobles don’t do it.”

“I—” Ferdinand stopped, biting back whatever retort he had. He took a deep breath. “You are, of course, correct, Dorothea. Blindness to reality allows the problem to persist. You have my word that when I become Prime Minister next to Edelgard, I will remember this conversation and strive to do better.”

“What, your word as a noble?” Dorothea asked, venom dripping from each word. Ferdinand either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it.

“No, my word as your friend.”

Byleth perked up at that, but the conversation ended with a small “Hmph” from Dorothea. 

With nothing else to glean from that conversation and her meal completed, Byleth left the dining hall to return to her quarters.

“—you are fearless. I look up to you as an example to follow.”

Byleth stopped. That was clearly Bernadetta’s voice, and Byleth just had to know who could make Bernie admit to such a thing. By the gazebo outside the dining hall, Bernadetta stood with Edelgard, of all people. Though, the tiny snippet of conversation made a little more sense now. 

Maybe Byleth should listen in on the rest of this. To gauge the well-being of two of her students, of course. Certainly not to satisfy a deep-seeded need to eavesdrop. It was for their benefit, not hers. Of course.

She stepped behind a hedge, out of sight but still able to listen.

“I feel like I let people down in the last battle. I hesitated too much, and— and— Ferdinand almost got hurt because I couldn’t bring myself to take a shot. I was too afraid. I thought I could learn how to be brave by watching you, but then I got scared and tried to hide! Please forgive me! I throw myself upon your mercy!”

Edelgard sighed, one of the deepest sighs Byleth had ever heard. Byleth knew she could step in to help this situation, but she also knew even more that this wasn’t directly her problem. 

“Bernadetta, look. Nobody is truly fearless,” Edelgard said, trying her best to keep her voice calm and level. “Even I have things that I’m afraid of.”

“Really?” Bernadetta asked, sounding just as surprised as Byleth felt. “What in the world could possibly frighten you?”

A pregnant pause set in. Byleth risked a peek around the corner. Edelgard stood stock still. Her whole body was tense. After a moment, she took a deep breath, and some of the tension left.

“The sea. I find the pitch black of the open sea at night quite frightening. I can't swim, so if the sea were to wash me away, I fear I would never return.”

“Wow, really? I never would have imagined,” Bernadetta said. 

“It is not something I take great pride in, but everyone has fears— has things they can’t do. The true strength of a person lies in acknowledging those fears and striving to overcome them.”

Bernadetta hung her head. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not strong, or even any good. I’m just worthless.”

“It is not a path you must walk alone,” Edelgard said. She reached out and tentatively put a hand on Bernadetta’s shoulder. Bernadetta flinched at the contact and turned her head to look at the hand. “There are people willing to help you on your journey: the professor, our classmates, and even me.”

“I… you….” Bernadetta trembled and her voice shook. “Lady Edelgard, I don’t deserve your kindness. I need to go!” She ran off, leaving Edelgard standing in the garden, looking dumbfounded.

Eventually, she sighed, and her shoulders slumped. Byleth left her hiding spot without thinking.

“Considering who you were talking to, I think that went well.”

Edelgard jumped and turned around. Her initially shocked expression quickly turned to one of annoyance.

“Professor! How long were you listening in on us?”

“Long enough,” Byleth said. There was a pause, until Edelgard realized her professor would offer no further information unprompted.

“And did you not consider it would be polite to inform us of your presence?”

“That would have scared Bernadetta away quicker.” Another pause. “Besides, you handled it well enough without me.”

“Be that as it may, I only handled it in that manner because of the clearly mistaken assumption that it was a private conversation,” Edelgard said, frustration creeping into her tone. 

“Why?”

“Why? Because it would not do for the future Emperor of Adrestia to speak so freely of weaknesses.”

“It worked with Bernadetta,” Byleth said.

Edelgard immediately took a breath as if to respond, but she held back at the last moment. She exhaled the breath and took two more before replying.

“Bernadetta is a special case, given her… unique personality.”

Another silence set in. Byleth desperately wanted Edelgard to understand the point she was trying to make, but obviously she wasn’t doing a great job of expressing it. Right as it looked like Edelgard was about to leave, Byleth spoke up again.

“My dad always told me a leader should show a little weakness to their subordinates. He said it made the leader feel more human. Made the subordinates more comfortable. Everyone in our company knew he didn’t like centipedes. They trusted him more because of it.”

“Professor, I don’t think—” 

“Even an emperor is human. It’s ok, Edelgard. Sometimes people want a  _ person _ to follow.”

The two women stared at each other. Edelgard clearly sought an explanation in Byleth’s blank expression, while Byleth tried to see if her words had any effect. Edelgard broke the tableau, looking down and away.

“Then if you don’t mind, Professor, might I know a weakness of yours?” she asked quietly.

“Snakes.”

Edelgard’s head came up again. “Snakes?”

“Don’t trust them.”

Yet another silence set in, but this time, it was broken by a chuckle from Edelgard.

“While not an answer I expected, I appreciate your honesty, Professor. Maybe Jeralt was onto something. This afternoon has given me a lot to think about. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I still have much to do while I have the free time.”

With a nod of the head, Edelgard walked away.

Somewhere deep down, Byleth hoped today had made a difference.


End file.
